There aren’t any big quests in these novels. No saving the world stakes. Whilst I adore reading stories where an entire world is at risk, very few of my stories follow that trend. A kingdom or two might wind up in danger (and civil war could be the outcome for one) but the stakes are a little more personal.

Very personal in the case of In Pain and Blood.

Still, I’ve the entirety of a small kingdomto play around in. At the moment, I’ve only got the places that’ll turn up in the story marked, a sort of layout of their journey, the general look of the terrain and all that jazz… anything to stop myself from veering off in the wrong direction. Because if there’s one thing I learnt from my oldest story, it’s best to have an idea of where they’re going before you send them across the terrain.

The kingdom itself is largely influenced by Medieval England. Castles, swords, royalty and all that… on top of magical metal that hinders magic, people unaffected by magic and daggers that can bring about your death at a single nick of the blade… Yup.

I’ve also got a basic timeline, a sort of base for how quickly they’ll travel. I don’t yet have everything down to the day, but I do know the story takes about three months what with all the travelling. It’s an average sort of timeline compared to the others I’ve written, but I’ll still have to keep an eye on it.